Putting words in other posters' mouth / Choices

[M.Clifford]

No: HPFGUIDX 136892


> Del wrote:
> Not true. I HAVE given the short version of my reasons why I think
> Harry, as described in the books, *could* turn to abusing Ginny. Not
> necessarily in a sexual way, by the way, physical/sexual abuse is 
> not the only type of abuse there is.
> 
> Message 136037:
> 
> "* I see a boy who imposes his will on his girl.
> 
> * I see a boy who doesn't care to hurt his girl as long as it makes
> things easier for him.

Valky replies:
HI Del! Taking a long line as always ;D

Excuse me for bumping my way in late in the game, but I thought I
might finally take a punt at giving my reasons for not being too
concerned that JKR didn't give us a good stock of details on the H/G
relationship. 
As always I expect from you, your premises are clear, concise nd
unmistakable canon. And as ever you might expect from me, ;D heres a
few slight nuances that sway the directness of those canon premises
that you've listed. 

A boy who imposes his will on his girl, and hurts her if it makes
things easier.

Ok this one is mostly about the break-up at the end of HBP, yes? I
can't think of another incedent that fits. This one is actually fairly
easy to contradict with some other canon. To start with, it doesn't
make it easier to break up with Ginny, and neither is it really
Harry's will to do it. Briefly after he does it he has to turn away
from her lest he lose his resoluteness to carry it through. Harry
feels duty bound to protect her, (the stupid noble reason) and he is
most *definitely* hurting himself helpless against the will of some
greaer thing than himself, Ginny actually appears less hurt about it
than Harry mostly, I think, because in her ability to understand
Harry, (which is given to us in leading canon, I know it's not
Knowledge exactly but I think its fair to say there is an
understanding between them) and in Ginny's understanding she knows
that this is an expression of Harry's will to be with her, rather than
without. 

Now that Harry doesn't care that Ginny is hurt is not exactly canon in
my opinion, because I don't think that Ginny was hurt so much as all
that, because Harry did care very much about what he was about to do
to her before he broke up with her, and because the secenes afterwards
were scenes of a boy denying *his* pain not his girlfriends. Harry's a
young man and not all that emotionally mature and Ginny, despite what
her brothers believe, is not all that experienced with feelings. it
would take time for both of them to finally process the sinking
feeling of their break up so Harry is yet to see Hurt!Ginny, because
she hasn't processed it or expressed it yet, and hence he's yet to
have a Hurt!Ginny to be concerned about.



> Del:
> * I see a relationship that is deemed good because it makes the boy
> happy, but nothing is said about the girl.
> 
> * I see a relationship where we don't know anything of what happens
> when they are together.

Valky:
I think Vivian (?was it?) said this best when she noted that Ginny did
talk about never giving up on Harry, this is a sign that she was happy
to finally have Harry's attention, so initially happy she certainly is.   

In the duration of the romance, well I agree, very little was said. So
a continued happy Ginny is maybe a bit up to our imaginations.
However, wasn't Harry permananently distracted anyhow, spying on Draco
trying to corner Slughorn, struggling with NEWT homework, working
through the lessons he had been taught by Dumbledore. Given all that
I'd say that Ginny, probably *wasn't* all that Happy romantically, but
not because differences arose between them or because Harry had
trouble lettng her be her own person, but because they didn't really
have all that much of a romance, because he was almost always not
really there. 

All of this seems to indicate to me that Ginny was probably just
waiting around quietly beside him as she'd always done, just waiting
for him to be free of his "saviour of the WW" burdens and maybe
realising all the while, that he might never be. In the end, Ginny had
a strange sort of expression on her face, as though she understood.
Maybe she understood because all she had so far gotten out of the
relationship was that Harry *would be* her boyfriend if he wasn't so
darn busy being all noble and duty bound, and she really figured that
when all was said and done she'd lost nothing in the process, because
nothing more had actually happened.

It's true we don't know what happens when they're together, but I
think we have a mass of canon to sift through and gather a fairly
accurate picture of what it looked like. They didn't do much but be
beside each other, I'd say, each having a little comfort in knowing
that their hearts were with each other, even if their minds and selves
were not.


> Del:
> * I remember that this boy had the habit of shouting loud and long 
> to force his female best friend to shut up in the last book.

Valky:
Yeah, well this wasn't really a habit per se, you've even said that
yourself. The CapsLock period was mostly circumstantial, and Harry's
feelings of ruthlessness in that chapter in his life, were indeed out
of character for him. That said, I think that the thought of shaking
Hermione was Harry's and not Voldie's and I think it makes an
incredibly good point about the nature of abusive behaviour. Feelings
get out of hand within us as we grow and develop into healthy minds,
the hardships of life will push us to the brink of our emotions and we
might scream and rant, it's true. Harry has come from the Dursleys
with mental images of physical and emotional abuse, these are chemical
imprints in the mind of the boy now, if they surface in a moment of
emotional agony for him, that is not a sign that he *will* act on it.
It is simply the minds attempt to reckon with the trial as it has
recorded it done. Harry never shakes Hermione. That's the point. That
mental imagery of how his parental figures dealt with their emotional
trials were bound to come clawing to the front of his mind someday.
The real question is will he follow them, will he deny his childhood
innocence and become his attacker. He does not, so he's won that
battle in the long war. It's not his fault that the imagery was
present in his mind, he didn't bring that imagery into his world. It
would be his fault if he failed to consult his conscience before
acting upon those feelings and images, though. But he didn't. So
Abuser!Harry, he is definitely on the road to *not* becoming. IMO,
that's canon.



> Del:
> * I also remember that this boy didn't care one bit what his former
> girlfriend needed, and that he got angry when it was explained to 
> him what her emotional needs were. I remember that this boy had a 
> mental image of what he wanted his former girlfriend to be, and that 
> he didn't like it when she didn't conform.

Valky:
Yes he definitely didn't understand Cho at all. But not caring I think
is a bit harsh to say. He did care for the most part while he was
still keen to get to know her. Her behaviour confused him at first,
she cried a lot and seemed to need very much to dwell long and
painfully on Cedric's death. I don't think harry didn't care that this
is what Cho needed. To me, it was more precisely that he could never
understand *why* she needed it. This was not a superficial lack f
understanding either, it was deep for Harry, because he had looked
into Cedrics vacant eyes and felt all the helplessness and agony of
losing Cedric first hand too. And for him, having to dwell painfully
on it alone for several weeks already had all but destroyed him, he
knew he wasn't himself, he knew he was on a very uneven keel and he
felt that what Cho was *hellbent* on doing was *exactly what had made
him that way*. So far ore than superficially not understanding why Cho
needed this emotional drama, he *knew* in his own thoughts that
*noone* needed to be sent off the rails by guilt and post trumatic
stress. Cho seemed to think the exact opposite, and naturally Harry
didn't understand. The problam was not that he didn't care about what
she was doing to herself, it was that he cared far too deeply about
that particular issue.
As for his mental image of what she should be, I think it was more a
mental image of them being together, wasn't it? An image of laughing
together and being generally carefree and frivolous. Yes he was
dissappointed when that never came to be, but did he try to force Cho
to conform by using domination tactics or cruelty of any kind? No.
In a way he had rights to be a certain part of angry about it all, he
really wasn't asking for much. Just a little time laughing, and
feeling good. When instead he wound up being spiralled into misery,
depression and self loathing, it hurt. Harry acted nobly to try and
make a clean break from it, it's hardly fair to have expected him to
nurse her back to sanity as well or unnecessarily humble his own
feelings while they were still so raw.


> Del:
> * And of course, I remember that this boy was raised without love,
> that he was emotionally abused or at least neglected as a kid, and
> that he doesn't have a parental figure to turn to for counsel 
> anymore.


You're right, and Harry must now turn to himself. But I think he's
used to doing that really. And you might agree that some of the canon
I have put forward suggests he's actually not doing a half bad job of it.

Valky